List of things that were better in PT

[Westheim]

Ah, back in the days ... there are some small things about AT, I don't really like.

- Artillery range capped at 2. This makes the valuable (and not so cheap) artillery so vulnerable against breakthroughs ... in PT, I could alwas hide my long range artillery (range 3) behind woods or other obstacles and still shell the enemy. 'T was cool ...
- Placement of mountains in random maps. Does this only happen to me? Every (almost) time, all the mountains on a map are put into three or four stripes, two or three hexes wide, going straight from north to south and from west to east (or both). It is somewhat strange, to say the least. PT placed mountains ... I don't want to say better, but at least not so ... well in order.
- The AI (standard). I haven't seen a standard AI build a single airplane yet. They also produce artillery in only very small amounts. Please don't say "Play the AI+, fool!" again. [8|]

Overall, I can assure, I'm 98,3% happy with this great game. All hail Vic. Again! [&o]

[SMK-at-work]

Put a fighting unit with your artillery - you should have something in a 2nd line to stop breakthroughs anyway.  My artillery units geenrally have 20 infantry with them just to stop them being easily over-run.
 
Mountains generally comin in chains/ranges - along fault lines......there's good reason to place them in lines.
 
the AI builds plenty of planes - what games are you playing?

[Westheim]

I always attach infantry to artillery, but I generally tend to have only small reserves in order to have wider frontlines. Besides, artillery is gone with a massive tank assault, with 0 riflemen or 5 or 20 just alike.

You don't want to tell me, that this (below) is in any way natural?

Random maps. The AI just refuses to build planes. You could say, they are just out of sight, but I already finished AIs off and never saw a single airplane.

[SMK-at-work]

Seems OK to me - of course it's not "natural" - it's a computer game!!  I notice you have not highlighted a coule of diagonal ranges at het top right, and that there's a 3-hex diagonal range right in het middle of yuor horizontal line too.
 
I'm a random game at the moment where at least 4 of hte 5 AI's have built planes and we've had some serious problems with air superiority - I've lsot several loaded transports to them, and they've lost even more.
 
Large bodies of tanks will over-run artillery regardless...they need to be defeated at eth front!

[Westheim]

But the woods are placed "better", too. [&:] Yeah, and there are some diagonal ranges, but ... well ... they're few.

Standard AI? Or AI+?

Yeah, that's really easy to say. The AI always manages somehow to break through my lines, even in mountain terrain.

[SMK-at-work]

I'm playing AI+

[Westheim]

And I was talking about the standard AI from the beginning.

[SMK-at-work]

AFAIK AI+ is jsut a boost in production isn't it?  there's no change in behaviour.

[JAMiAM]

I've seen the AI in random games build plenty of aircraft. In fact, I've seen them get a rather substantial jump on me in the air war, due to building them early and in substantial numbers. Quite the rude surprise when your advancing forces get chewed up and spit back out...[X(]

[JAMiAM]

With respect to wanting a longer range on artillery, I feel that this would make what I feel to be one of the weaknesses of AT, even more pronounced. It's difficult enough to justify the killer stacks of artillery I've seen roaming the game, slaughtering stacks of units with near impunity and without any apparent supply usage. To make them even less vulnerable than they already are, would be a mistake in my opinion. What I would like to see, is some implementation of counterbattery fire in the game, beyond firing with whatever guns are left over, after the end of your opponent's turn. That, or a more realistic usage of supply for artillery, and air attacks. As it is now, there seems to be a major imbalance between support weapon fire effectiveness and frontline weapon fire effectiveness, vis-a-vis supply usage. Of course, I'm still fairly new to the system and may be missing something obvious...

[freeboy]

Are you sure you cannot build artillery with larger range in the editor?

[tweber]

What I would like to see, is some implementation of counterbattery fire in the game, beyond firing with whatever guns are left over, after the end of your opponent's turn. That, or a more realistic usage of supply for artillery, and air attacks. As it is now, there seems to be a major imbalance between support weapon fire effectiveness and frontline weapon fire effectiveness, vis-a-vis supply usage. Of course, I'm still fairly new to the system and may be missing something obvious...

You can allow counterbattery. Go into editor, settings, and into the rule vars sheets. It is in there somewhere. Note that counterbattery is enabled in the WWI scenario I posted on the scenario bank.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: tweber

What I would like to see, is some implementation of counterbattery fire in the game, beyond firing with whatever guns are left over, after the end of your opponent's turn. That, or a more realistic usage of supply for artillery, and air attacks. As it is now, there seems to be a major imbalance between support weapon fire effectiveness and frontline weapon fire effectiveness, vis-a-vis supply usage. Of course, I'm still fairly new to the system and may be missing something obvious...

You can allow counterbattery. Go into editor, settings, and into the rule vars sheets. It is in there somewhere. Note that counterbattery is enabled in the WWI scenario I posted on the scenario bank.

Thanks again. My experience thus far has been with a few of the scenarios included with the game, and random scenarios. In none of them did I see that behavior, so I incorrectly assumed it was missing from the game, rather than missing from scenarios.

[freeboy]

part of the "gaminess" and strength in turn is the great editor, I would not be surprised to see someone created a checkers emulator LOL.. yet due to the need for simplicty the initial release comes with some tweeking to be done imo.. no worries this is still a 9.7 rating in the FREEBOY hall of flame! DOH![:-]

[seille]

@Westheim
Artillery range 2 is not enough ? I know you play random games mostly with
hypotethic hex sizes, but for many ww2 scenario´s the hex size is fixed more or less
and a range 3 artillery would be something like the "Dora" or "Bertha", but not longer a
"normal" artillery gun. In addition it would make the game imbalanced.
I can still good remember the PT artillery especially with upgrades. Always used such
units moving forward and fire with some flak protection and a stronger unit in front as protection.
Not very challenging....
 
I already saw the AI using planes even not very clever mostly.
 
For the random maps i can´t say so much. I needed in PT several attempts to get a good map
and i need in AT some attempts even the "mirror map" and "block center" options are great improvements
compared to PT. I like the AT random game generator much more.

[PDiFolco]

Re Arty : I also think they consume way too less supply, but this (as well as range) is easily moddable.

[freeboy]

Seille, no reason not to shrink the scale for WW2 games, and to increase ala world at war

[tweber]

I am working on a re-do of the world at war scenario and I am shrinking artillery range to 1 given the scale of the game.  In the tutorial on making units, I gave the mobile infantry an artillery range of 5.  So, you can adjust artillery ranges if desired.  Go to editor - sftypes - statistics 2.  You can adjust supply carry and consumption in editor - sftypes - statistics 1.

[TPM]

Getting back to the initial topic...I miss the Leaders from PT1. They really gave the game personality, a certain "specialness" to each unit. Maybe someone out there (or me) can create a subformation that is a leader?